Rescue Mission: Summer Silsbury

"COMPANY!!!" everyone heard Ichnaea's voice echoing loudly into their heads. They turned around and saw several enemies approach them."We're surrounded." everyone huddled together, shielding Summer from the Shadows. An enemy started attacking them from all directions. There was no other choice but to fight, "Everyone! Keep them off the girl!"Owen started cutting up his enemies while Naito swayed her scythe, cutting away the enemies on her side. Masato on the other hand covered both Owen's and Naito's side with each gun.

"There's too many!" scowled Naitou as she cut through a few more shadows with one swish. However, more just kept coming and coming, and Naitou suddenly felt weak at the knees and almost crashed into the wall if she hadn't regained composure. "Owen, we have to get Summer out of here!" she suddenly said as she slashed a couple more shadows coming their way. "The...Summer's shadow...it's coming!" that would explain why more and more little shadows were coming their way.

Masato bit back a groan as he continued to provide cover for Owen and Naitou while kicking any Shadows that went too close for comfort. He was running low on bullets as he reloaded both of his revolvers. They just kept on coming. When they defeated one, it would seem like two would take its place. They continued to fend off the Shadows but it was clear it was a losing battle.

'If this keeps up, we'll get overwhelmed...' he thought as he kicked a Shadow that got too close to his liking. He then shot the Shadows that were just approaching and noticed a familiar blonde head bobbing at the back of the group.

Out then came the giant teddy bear Owen fought earlier. Most of its head was severed off, showing the a large pile of fluff and torn cloth rather than a bear's head."Hey, it's that thing I fought earlier!" Owen pointed out with a grin, "I thought, I killed it. My bad!"The smaller Shadows stepped out of the way as the large bear approached them. It raised its arm and heavilly struck it towards the group."It's time to do our thing... FENRIR!!!" Owen raised his card and crushed it with his hand axe. Light emanated in front of him and right before the bear's claws crushed the group, out came a lady, covered in black fur and tribal markings. She had wolf-like ears and her eyes were bright yellow. She was wearing nothing else but a yellow loin cloth and a torn cape wrapped around her torso. As for her body, it had a combination of curves and muscle, boasting both strength and beauty. "About damn time!" the furred lady began, grabbing hold of the teddy bear's claw with one of her hands. "I wanted to save you for the boss." Owen scratched his head."No shit, Einstein!" she threw the monster back and it crashed on the other groups of shadows, crushing most of them. Most of what was left on the enemy retaliated. The furred female warrior licked her chops in anticipation, "This is what I was waiting for all week!"

Summer watched with bated breath as the other's began to fight, each of them bringing out their own weapons and slicing, mashing and shooting through the shadows. Keeping her eyes on them, the blonde missed the shadow, a bit bigger than the others around them, creep past the what she assumed was air-tight defenses until it was practically on top of her, dragging her away.

"WHAT THE--" She started to say when she felt herself being pulled away from the group and somewhere along the corridor "HEEEELP!!" The girl called out as she kicked and tried to escape from the iron grasp that she was in. "OH MY GOD. HELP!"

This was most certainly more than the amount of insanity that she was used to. She just hoped that she would come out of this thing still mentally stable.

The screams was enough to make Naitou's blood run cold as she turned around, after evading and slashing a shadow from it's feeble attempt to cause yet another injury at her (to which did not happen, thankfully) only to see that the blonde princess they were supposed to protect had been taken away by that monstrous shadow of hers as she screamed for her life. Things were definitely not going well for them in this mission.

"OH MY GOD, SUMMER!" she attempted to run towards the girl to try and attempt to rescue her, but more shadows came round, blocking her way and piling up on top of her, some attempting to drag her and squish/crush her down on the floor. She madly swayed her scythe and kicked about, trying everything in her will and strength to get away from this sticky situation so she can go to rescue the damsel in distress screaming for her life. "O---OWEEEEEN! NAKAJIIIMAAAAAAAAA!!" she yelled at the top of her voice. "SUMMER-" and plop goes a shadow on top of her. Suddenly, she kicked it away and angrily swayed her scythe. 'Damn it, i look like a lunatic!' she cursed in her mind. a Few seconds clearing was given to her, enough to relay her message.

"WHAT ARE YOU STANDING THERE? SUMMER'S IN TROUBLE!" she yelled and once again fought not to end up underneath the shadows.

Fenrir tore off the Shadows over Naito while Owen cleaved away the ones that were approaching them."GO!" Owen said as Naito was broken free, "Get the girl!"As Masato and Naito left, Owen, grabbed another blue card. It was a different card this time. Instead of having a picture of his Persona, it had a picture of what seemed to be an icon of a person and all arrows pointing at him, "Let's see if this item could work on them... DECOY!!!"Light emanated from the card and all of the Shadows including the ones that were in pursuit of Masato and Naito turned to his direction."What do we do now?" Fenrir asked, as they huddled together, surrounded.Owen thought of a way out. It was hopeless. If they attacked one side, their blind spot would be compromised. He then heard a creaking under him. The floor below him was wood. He tapped his shoe to the wooden floor and it sounded unstable. Both of them exchanged looks with Fenrir raising her clenched fists and then thrust claws into the wooden surface. The floor submitted and they fell into the hole, landing on what seemed to be a big basement. Fenrir landed on her feet while Owen crashed with his bottom. Both of them recovered as they noticed the Shadows taking pursuit."SEE YA LATER, SUCKERS!!!" Owen antagonized them as he sprinted away along with Fenrir.

"Be careful! There are more headed your way!" Kai telepathically said as he sensed Naitou and Masato in hot pursuit of the shadow that had napped Summer from their circle. "The shadow you are dealing with has gotten stronger. It would be best to think of a strategy right now..."

'or perhaps, wait and see...' said Ichnaea. '...those two cannot deal with that thing themselves. It has to be her.'

'...Ichnaea...you're far too wise for my liking...'

"THANKS OWEN!" being relieved of the shadows on top of her, Naitou jumped up and ran with Masato trailing behind her in hot pursuit of the stolen Summer. "Summer! Hang on!" she wielded her scythe and attempted to cut the shadow's grasp from Summer for which she succeeded in, making the shadow screech like a banshee; the grasp on Summer's entire body disappeared like mist and the Summer's shadow materialized once more, in a more scarier and deformed image.

Naitou grimaced and prepared for another slash attempt, but as she raised her scythe to do so, the angry shadow only grinned, and with one slap, had managed to strongly throw Naitou back, making the girl fly and hit a wall so hard that when she landed, she had almost lost consciousness. Her glasses had been taken off as well and dropped on the floor, cracked, broken, useless. As she lay on the floor, drifting between conscious and sleep, she felt something warm drip down on the side of her head. She only scrunched her brows in agony, feeling the pain of her body take place now as her eyes slowly closed its lids, a blurry image of the deformed shadow, Summer and Masato in front of her, meters away.

'Crap...why am I always the one to be stuck in situations like these?...I have...I have to...save....keep....my friends.....safe...' and then lost consciousness.

"What the-NAITOU! NAITOU!" Kai was so frantic he was practically screaming now. Something terrible had happened to his sister...he could feel she was unconscious.

'Calm down, master.' said Ichnaea in an attempt to soothe him down with her voice. 'The mission.' she reminded.

"MASATO! GET THE GIRLS AND GET OUT OF THERE NOW! RETREAT! OWEN! GET OUT OF-" he paused, feeling something taking place, he felt beads of sweat at the side of his head, trailing down coldly to his neck. His eyes widened. He had not felt like this in a long time...something was up. Something was going on...

and it wasn't about the dungeon or the shadows, or Masato, Owen and Naitou...

Summer watched as the thing carrying her had tossed Naitou to one side, as if she had been a lifeless, weightless rag doll. "No!" She heard herself call out as she strained against the iron holds "Naitou!! No!" She then looked up at the face of the shadow, her own face and felt herself grow cold as it laughed maniacally. Shadow or not, it was still her somehow, and it couldn't resist going through the dramatics. Typical.

"See? You even convenience your own friends." It cackled "Stop denying that you'll always be useless, you'll always be the damsel in distress."

That was it. That was the last straw. She then suddenly heard a voice sort of whispering in her..head? What the---?

"You are not a damsel in distress...You are so much more than that..."

What the bloody hell was that?!

"You have power. Use it. Don't just sit there. They need your help. All you need to do is say one word. Just one."

"Need...my..help." She said softly as if in a trance. "Just..one word."

The shadow then looked down at her and rolled its luminescent green eyes. "What are you on about? You can't help. You're useless."

"I am not useless." She said, her voice ringing loud and clear as she strained against the hold once more until she fell to the floor with a muted thud. She then stood up, ignoring the sting around her body that must have been caused by the rough man-handling earlier and glared at the shadow. A new found strength sort of filling every corner of her mind as she called out "PERSONA!" suddenly, a sort of blue light filled her vision, but disappeared as quickly as it came, but in its place stood a tall, pale woman dressed in robes of yellow and white, looking like she came out of a painting from the renaissance period

And yet, somehow, she knew who it was. "Eos." She called out to the Greek goddess of dawn, still sort of in shock at what was happening.

"I knew it..." Kaikou put on a knowing smile as he brushed his hair with his hand. "She has the potential."

'As we have thought, master.' added Ichnaea. 'Shall we let her do things or shall we direct her?'

"Let things flow...deep inside, she knows what to do next...she knows because it is a part of the sea of her soul." he said, "...Summer Silsbury" remembering that he had browsed over her file before, thanks to the fact that he is a faculty member. "...another one with the potential...and her Persona's quite strong as well."

"Owen, where are you? please regroup now. you need to see this." he ordered the boy to return. The leader should see this, it was that important and then Kai turned his attention to his sister and the other one with her and Summer. "Masato can you hear me?" he asked in the boy's head. "Take Naitou, watch over and set her aside. Let Summer take care of that shadow. She knows what to do." Like all persona-users in their personas awakening. It's already a natural thing, an instinct some may call it.

"all right, Miss Silsbury...show us what you've got. Prove that you're not useless." he chuckled, unaware he had said those words to Summer's mind, or perhaps, he meant to speak to her after all...

Masato followed Kaikou's orders and pulled Naitou out of the fray. He checked Naitou's body for anything serious that might be life-threatening. He turned to look at the newest addition to their group and her Persona. He always couldn't take his eyes away from new Personas he encountered.

'Maybe it has something to do with the lights...' he thought absently as he stared at Eos.

He shook his head as he tended to the unconscious Naitou. He pulled out a Revival Bead out of his pocket and broke the it. Hopefully it would let Naitou recover consciousness as he wiped the sweat off his face. He drank some medicine as he turned towards the battle. He could leave Naitou now, but if he did, Kaikou would skin him alive.

'The woes of being friends with someone with an overprotective brother...' he thought bitterly as he shot at Shadows from his position while waiting for Summer to beat the hell out of her Shadow.

Owen leaned behind the wall, hiding in the darkness as the conflict unfolded. He made a grin, knowing that the awakening was a success.

"WHAT'S THIS?!" Ichnaea's voice was echoing within everyone's heads. She sounded more like a commentator now, "WE HAVE AN UNEXPECTED TURN OF EVENTS HERE FOLKS! ACTUALLY, IT WAS KINDA EXPECTED SINCE THE SAME THING HAPPENED TO THE REST OF US BUT HEY! THIS WILL BE ONE HELL OF A MATCH-UP LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! ANOTHER 'ME-AGAINST-MYSELF'! BETTER HANG ON TO YOUR G-STRINGS CUZ WE ALL KNOW THAT IT'S GONNA BE A BLAST!!!"

Summer stared at the giant thing floating before her and blinked. Did she just, summon that? Whoa. She looked down on her hand and noticed something that she hadn't been holding earlier...a card, a card similar to what the others were holding. So, was this a persona?

Then she slightly jumped in surprise when she heard someone speak to her in her mind. Someone unfamiliar, and yet it most certainly didn't feel unwelcome. "I am most certainly not useless." She growled under her breath, addressing the person that was talking to her. She would deal with him - whoever he was - later. She was sure of it.

When she thought all craziness was already over, a voice boomed in her head, acting like one of those commentators in those barbaric matches that the boys in her old school were so fond of talking about. Eew. 'Please, please shut up.' She thought furiously 'I'm trying to concentrate.'

"Eos." She called out as the persona looked back at her and they sort of shared a significant look before a circle of light surrounded the shadow and swiftly closed it in, surrounding it with blinding light until all that could be seen was a dark sort of smoke rising from the slowly disappearing circle of light.

The blonde smiled at her achievement as she sighed in relief. But, before she could celebrate her victory further, she felt her eyes grow heavy as her kneed buckled and she fell to the ground with a loud thud.

"Brilliant." said Kaikou. "She's finally gotten the hang of it...hm, but it seems she's used too much energy and was caugfht up with so much excitement going on..." Kaikou turned to Ichnaea with a grin. "I think it's about time we get them out of there, you know what to do Ichnaea."

'Of course...setting up their escape route.' said the persona.

She felt something warm envelope her body and ease her pain and as she opened her eyes slowly, she groaned, pulling herself up to sit. "Wha-what happened?" she looked around, the images still blurry, but she could tell someone was beside her. She blinked again, trying to make out of the person beside her, to whom she immediately figured was Masato.

"Nakajima-san...w-what happened?" she massaged her throbbing head. "...where are my glasses?..." and then started feeling the ground for her spectacles. But before she could even feel anything on the ground, she suddenly remembered and turned to Masato. "AH! Summer! Where-" even without clear sight, she could make out a hazy blonde figure from a good distance away from her spot.

It would only be Summer unconscious. Without thinking, she dashed for the unconscious girl, quickly forgetting about her scythe and her glasses and crouching beside Summer, worried and everything. "Oh, Summer...please be all right..." she tried once more to make out what was going on right now and turned back to where Masato and Owen were. "uh...i see no shadow...what just happened?" the disadvantage of being unconscious for a few seconds really.

"Shut up and rest more for a bit..." Masato said as he saw Naitou regain consciousness. He tried to stop her from moving but she ran towards an unconscious Summer."You were badly injured..." he finished lamely as he watched Naitou run off. He followed her just to make sure that she wouldn't keel over and die.

"What do you think Kaikou would do to me if ever you get another injury?" he muttered as he rubbed the back of his head.

"I don't know what happened actually... I was busy watching over you so I don't have a clue what happened..." he answered as he looked around the room.

Naitou blushed a pink hue in her cheeks and looked down at her knees in total embarrassment. She wasn't embarrassed about the fact that she had fallen unconscious or that Masato had revived her or scolded her. It was the mere fact that her ally and friend was fearing what her overprotective brother would do to him if he didn't watch over her, and it made her feel so much like a little girl, to which she strongly protests she is not anymore.

Surely, Masato would agree to that, she's already a young lady, capable of independence, but then again, the guy might not agree with her if Kai's around. "S-sorry..." she coughed nervously and looked another way. "I'll be more careful from now on...thanks...for helping me and for watching over me." she tried to give a smile Masato's way but it looked more forced than a natural smile, he'd see through it immediately. "Uhm..well..I think we should be trying to get her out of here as well now..."

"I'll take care of that and Owen-" Kaikou heard the Owen speak to Summer, to which he only sighed exasperatedly. "Ehrm..." Kaikou cleared his throat. As usual, Owen's wrong timing is impeccable. "Hate to break it to you, Owen, but Ms. Silsbury just fainted....in any other case, I've prepared an escape route for all of you. Please stay where you are. I'll have Ichnaea get all of you out of there in a moment."